From Shadows and Iron Boots
by Castiel-Fan
Summary: How do you fight against your own Shadow? Well, Link shows you how to win such a fight...in his own, special way of course...


_**First things first:  
I DON'T OWN THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - OCARINA OF TIME!  
ALL RIGHTS BELONGS TO NINTENDO AND THE CREATORS OF THE GAME!**_

 _Wow it has been a really long time since I have posted anything about Zelda.  
This story here is based on a very spontaneous idea that I got when I have been reading a very old Zelda Fic of mine.  
This fic here is based on Chapter 8 of my story "The return of a Hero" which can also be found on this account.  
Sadly this story of mine never got much attention and I would like to change this, in the hope a few more people might read it.  
_

 _I hope you will enjoy this pretty crazy idea of mine and I am sorry for grammer/spelling mistakes.  
I translated this story from german into english. _

**_And Feedback is very much appreciated by me, thank you!_**

* * *

 **From Shadows and Iron Boots**

They stood there in total silence.

Face to face and neither of the two opponents wanted to take the first step.

Red glowing eyes stared into sea-blue eyes.

The swords were drawn, the shields ready, but none of them wanted to start the first attack.

Link's heart was already pounding so hard against his ribs that he thought they would break under the load every second. Sweat had gathered on his forehead and his muscles were tense as he looked into the cold eyes of his opponent. A shudder ran down his spine, because he had never faced an opponent like this before.

An opponent, who looked like him and moved like him.

His own Shadow...the dark side in him...

His little fairy Navi seemed as tense as he was, because she fluttered nervously around his head.

There was an eerie silence that lay over the place.

No sound was heard; there was only his own heartbeat in his ears.

Then he began to move slowly, put one foot next to the other and slowly walked around his opponent, but he just copied his movements. Step by step, the two opponents circled each other and Navi preferred to take a little distance from them, because she felt that the fight would start every second.

The tension in the air was almost tangible, just as Link's nervousness, but now he couldn't allow himself to get out of concentration, because this would be his safe dead.

Ganondorf had sent him this terrible enemy to make sure that he would surely die this time, but Link wouldn't let it come so far.

He would fight!

He wouldn't only fight for the liberation of the water temple or Zora's realm, no, he would also come a step closer to the liberation of whole Hyrule with this victory.

And he would be a step closer to Princess Zelda...

He wouldn't give up and if he would die today, then he would die with the sword in his hand and not as a coward!

These thoughts fueled the fire in his innermost more and more and his heroism overpowered him almost and before he knew it, he had already dashed forward and attacked.

But as was to be expected, his Shadow did the exact same thing.

He jumped forward and their swords crossed in the middle of the huge room, which consisted of only two doors, a floor full of foot ankle deep water, a small island with a dead tree on it and an endless expanse to their sides.

As the swords crossed, the sound of it made even the little fairy shiver and she trembled as she saw how Link tried to attack his Shadow again and again.

Soon, their battle cries and the clanging of metal on metal cut through the eerie silence that prevailed in this place. Navi could only watch helplessly how Link tried to hit his opponent over and over again, but he never landed a hit on him.

But you could say the same thing about this Shadow, because his dark side was not better than him and he also didn't land a single hit.

At some point, Link seemed to have enough of this game because he brought a good distance between himself and his opponent. Exactly the time he needed to change from his master sword to his long sword and he now used it against his Shadow.

But when his opponent hit his sword into his direction again, he destroyed the long sword with a single, flowing movement. The blade landed in the water to his feet and all that was left was the handle of the sword with a tiny piece of the blade left on it.

Link growled and threw the handle into the direction of his Shadow, but he avoided the "attack" with ease and grinned, as he could see how Link slowly lost his patience with him.

"And you want to be the great hero of Hyrule? Don't make me laugh! You can't even handle your own sword, you "hero"," the Shadow said with his deep, dark voice, but instead of frightening Link with it, he stoked the fire of rage in his belly all the more, because Link was about to explode any second and he grabbed his master sword and again he tried to land a hit at the other, but the more he got lost in his anger, the louder his Shadow laughed at him.

"Is that all you got hero? What a shame. I would have expected more from the highly praised hero of Hyrule! How did you make it through the other temples without dying before?"

The words provoked him more and more, made him angrier and angrier, but no matter how much he hit at him, Link just couldn't land a small hit, because his shadow simply copied every damn movement of his!

Then, as he turned his back on him, the Shadow attacked and Link's loud, painful scream went through the room as steel cut through flesh.

Dark Link landed several hits on his back before Link managed to get away from him and he did so only when Navi had come to his rescue and distracted the Shadow by whirling around his head and bravely flew right into his face over and over again to rob him of the sight.

The wounds on Link's back were fortunately not particularly deep and not life-threatening, but nevertheless they burned like fire and that stoke the fire of his anger all the more.

But he slowly lost his ideas, because he had no idea how he should fight against this enemy.

At least until he turned his eyes back to him and saw how his little fairy distracted him.

He had only to land a single targeted hit on his head and his Shadow would be defeated; At least the hero hoped for that.

But how could he do this when Dark Link copied all his movements?

Although... _this_ movement he would certainly not copy...

When the idea had hit him, a wide grin spread over Link's face.

He even forgot the pain on his back and without thinking about it, he dropped his sword and instead took one of the steel boots out of his bag, which he had taken to the water temple since the trip began.

"Navi! Careful!" was all he said to his little fairy, before the boot already flew through the air.

The fairy had only a few seconds to dodge, because the hard boot collided with Dark Link's head only moments later. The Shadow screamed with pain, fell to the ground and held his hands pressed against the spot where the iron boot had hit him. When he opened his red eyes again, he saw how Link knelt above him and how he raised his sword to give him the death blow, but he wouldn't let it come that far and before the sword could pierce him, he had vanished.

"You damn coward! Come back and let us finish it!"

But there no answer came and so Link let himself fall to the ground, grumbling and completely exhausted. The pain in his back got stronger again and now he realized how exhausted he really was.

The fight had been hard and had robbed him of almost all his strength.

The clicking of the door locks and the iron bars, which disappeared from the doors shortly afterwards, told him that it was worthwhile and that he had also passed this test and could go on.

But he would take a break first, because he had to take care of his wounds and get his strength back.

A quiet laugh distracted him from his thoughts and he raised an eyebrow as he saw Navi, who was almost shaking with laughter and that made even him grin, because her laughter was contagious to him.

"What?" he asked.

"You have so many weapons with you and you defeat your own Shadow with a boot? This is too funny hahaha!"

And not even Link could hold back his laughter now and soon the cheerfulness of the two friends filled the complete room, from which the water, the island and the eternal expanse had now disappeared.

"When we get back home, we have to tell this story to the others!"

Link's laughter died down at that and he muttered something to himself that sounded like "I will not tell anyone about this. Never!".

Navi just grinned at him and answered a simple "We'll see about that, Mister Hero."

And Link already knew that this story would hunt him for a long, long time.

If only he had never thrown that stupid boot...

 **The end**

 **(To be continued in my story "The Return of a Hero")**


End file.
